


something red

by greywardenblue



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-09 22:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20517599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywardenblue/pseuds/greywardenblue
Summary: After Amandine's latest betrayal, Toby is wary when August shows up on her doorstep, but the interaction doesn't go the way she expected.





	something red

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written before The Unkindest Tide - it doesn't contain spoilers and doesn't take that book into consideration.

“Wait. How will you have time to pick Gillian up?”

“Oh, the Luidaeg volunteered to do that. I think she enjoys the idea of freaking Janet out.”

May considered that for a moment. “That’s valid.”

There was a knock on the front door, and they looked at each other for a moment before Toby sighed. “I’ll go get it.”

On the way to the door she passed her trusty baseball bat, and she considered picking it up but decided against it. That would really be paranoia.

“Hello,” said August. She wore a yellow dress with flowers and clutched a handbag tight, the clearest sign of her nervousness. “Can I come in?”

Toby took a deep breath. “Swear first.”

August frowned. “What?”

“Swear, or you’re not coming in.”

They stared at each other for a few moments, each daring the other to back down. Then August deflated and sighed. Their childhoods were different, but Toby was sure Amandine taught the forms to both of them. She would not make the same mistake again.

“By the root and the branch, I come in peace; by the rose and the thorn, I will offer no harm to you or any beneath your roof. By oak and ash and rowan, I swear.”

Toby repeated the promise back, surprised by how uncertain her sister sounded - but August must have been out of practice too, spending all those years on her own, with nobody to invite in, nobody to visit. She stepped out of the way and August stepped in, looking around the house. Toby knew she had already been here, when she broke in and tied Quentin up, but not since then. Since then, every meeting they had was in the Summerlands, or at Goldengreen at Patrick’s request.

“I just came to give you this,” August said, thrusting a black box at Toby without looking at her. Toby blinked. The box was flat and looked like it most likely held some piece of jewellery, which was cause for suspicion. She opened the box cautiously, careful not to touch whatever was inside, just in case. 

It was a necklace. A blood-red heart, surrounded by smoke-grey roses and thorns. She nearly dropped the necklace when she saw the roses, and opened her mouth to tell August thanks but no thanks when the other woman spoke first.

“I’ll be wanting it back,” she said. “I… I got it from Papa, you know. Smoke and roses, and the blood, too. But I thought… you know, for your something borrowed. If you do something like that.”

August fidgeted nervously, not meeting her eyes. She must have gotten a lot of gifts from Simon, but given his current state, it wasn’t a small thing if she was giving anything of his away.

“I’ll wear it,” Toby said softly, pushing down her revulsion at the roses. Roses may have been Eira, and roses may have been Luna, and roses may have been her mother - but they were August, too. Roses were her old family, and there was a reason she didn’t talk to most of them, but maybe it didn’t have to be that way.

Thank you was forbidden, so Toby spread her arms hesitantly. August eyed her suspiciously for a moment, like she expected Toby to pull back and say she was just joking, then stepped forward to accept the hug. They held each other for a few moments, and Toby was about to pull back when she heard the quiet sob. She tightened her arms a bit and said nothing.

It was a strange sensation, to have another sister sob in her arms. A sister who was a hundred years older than her, and yet looked and acted younger. May had looked exactly like Toby when she appeared, and August looked like their mother. In her current state, Toby’s looks were somewhere between the two - not looking like May, but not quite looking like August either. They would have made an interesting family picture, if they were ever near each other long enough for someone to take one.

“I was so stupid,” August whimpered into her shoulder. “They told me not to go, but I thought that was just part of the trials. A hero has to go even when everyone says it’s a bad idea.”

But not the Luidaeg, Toby thought, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the time.

“And now my Papa is gone,” August continued, the anguish in her voice almost painful to hear. “He didn’t even recognise me. Maybe… maybe he would have recognised me if I had looked like him, but I don’t, I can’t, I never can. I can shift everyone else’s blood, but I can’t shift mine. I can’t make myself like him like you.”

He wouldn’t have, because it wasn’t about looks, it was about being his home. Toby rubbed August’s back silently.

“I asked Mama to… to go and find Oberon so we can get Papa back, because she could, right, she’s Mama, she could-- but she… she…” August’s words were getting harder to make out as they turned less like words and more like wails. “She refused!”

Ah. There it was.

“I begged her, I begged, and she barely looked at me, and she told me leave her be and go play with the roses like I was  _ five _ !”

Toby had always thought it was unfair that pureblood heirs in the Summerlands got to be children even at a hundred, treated as rare, precious treasures, while she was already on the streets with Devin and the other changeling kids in their teens and twenties. But it was a cruelty as much as a kindness: there would always come a point where they had to grow up, or a point when being a precious doll got suffocating.

We betray our mothers and they betray us, she had told Rayseline. That was before her mother betrayed her beyond any forgiveness.

“August…” She searched desperately for something comforting to say. “I wish I could pretend to be surprised.”

August let out another whimper. Well, that didn’t work.

Tybalt entered the room without a sound, visible to Toby but not to August. Toby shot him a look pleading for help and he walked to the bookshelf, picking up an envelope. They had written August’s name on it weeks ago, but never sent it out. Tybalt held it up with a questioning look, and handed it to Toby after she answered with a nod.

“Hey, August,” she said slowly as Tybalt backed out of the room to leave them alone. “Are you doing anything next week?”

“What?”

“Next week,” Toby repeated.

August pulled back to look at her, her face wet and puffy from crying. Before this moment, Toby hadn’t realised she could look like that. Apparently, not even the pureblood children of Oberon were completely immune to ugly crying.

“I’m not doing anything special,” she said slowly. Toby handed her the envelope and August took it, opening it with the same cautiousness when she accepted the hug - like she thought it might be a prank. Then again, Toby was suspicious about the jewellery box, too. They still had a long way to go to make Patrick happy.

“Great! Then I’ll call the Luidaeg and tell her to pick you up too, and then you can travel with her and Gillian.” Toby finished the sentence before she realised that would mean Janet would open the door to not only the Luidaeg, but the Luidaeg  _ and _ her granddaughter August standing on the porch. Well, she deserved what she got, and seeing her cringe twice as hard would make the Luidaeg even happier. Toby just wished she could see their faces. “Speaking of the Luidaeg… she’ll be more likely to say yes if you apologise first.”

August looked at her sheepishly. “You think she would accept it?”

Toby thought about that. “I’m… not sure. She’s really pissed at you, but frankly, she has a damn good reason. But… she loves you, August. She loves us. That’s why she’s so angry, because she loves us.” The Luidaeg might have threatened to gut her like a fish for saying that, but Toby knew she wouldn’t have denied it - she could never lie so directly.

August nodded slowly. “I grew up with her, in a way,” she said. “I mean… we didn’t have weekly tea parties or anything. But I knew she was my aunt. I knew she was family, and not just the monster under our beds. But you… you just went and made friends with her? Just like that?”

Toby thought of questions and threats and seagulls and donuts. “Just like that,” she said.

Maybe they can be family, just like that.

**Author's Note:**

> Since the Brightest Fell, I have wondered a lot about how August is feeling about things. Her and Toby had very different childhoods, and Amandine was definitely crueler to Toby, but I don't think she was really doing August favors either - and ignored her consent just like she did Toby's. I think the sisters have more in common than they realise now.


End file.
